Caolan's 4th birthday party

Our middle son turns four years old in a fortnight and I’m planning his first big birthday party at our house.
In previous years he was still young enough to accept a small gathering of family and friends, a bit of dinner, a cake and presents. Now he’s a older he has caught on that birthdays mean inviting his little friends over to trash our house, trample cake into carpets, fight with fellow guests, play music way too loud and throw up in the hall. This apparently, for it seems I have forgotten my wild teenage party-going years when the above description would have been a typical Friday night, is what constitutes a great time.
And so this year he wants a pirate party. He wants pirate plates, cups and cakes plus a real pirate to provide entertainment. Now there lies a problem. Unless the oil tanker hijacking business runs dry off the East African coast I doubt those guys would be looking into the children’s party entertainment business so we’ve booked a magician instead. If he peppers his routine with a few ‘Ahoy me Hartys’ and ‘arrghhh, land ahoy’ and the hardcore pirate fans among the bunch will be happy.
Although I truly love organising parties for my kids I find it all a tad stressful. Previous parties were organised to militaristic precision and went well, albeit with a few hiccups.
There was the time I borrowed my mother’s food processor thinking I could whip up a birthday cake an hour before the party. The thing couldn’t handle the pace and blew up, almost setting the kitchen on fire. As we cleared the black smoke from the kitchen mum told me it had never once done that in the entire 27 years she had used it. She was swiftly dispatched with her still smouldering antique mixer to Sainsburys to get a shop-bought birthday cake which we had to ruffle up a bit and pretend it was homemade.
There’s always the usual bumped heads, cat fights, fisticuffs, puking after too many sweets, falling off the bouncy castle melarky. That’s the adults, the kids are worse.
A friend of our family once bounced a little too enthusiastically on her grandson’s bouncy castle, literally bounced off onto a concrete patio and spend the next two months with her entire upper body in cast. We would often meet her walking around the supermarket, both arms outstretched like a zombie. I dare say if she didn’t laugh about the incident she’d cry.
So here I go again to organise the biggest, best bash my boy has ever seen. I may be stressed but I’m creating memories here. Even if when they grow up the only thing they remember about their parties is the burnt birthday cake…..